


Easter

by SharkAria



Series: Holiday SanSan [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Easter, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 04:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6359458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkAria/pseuds/SharkAria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa smoothed the skirt of her new floral dress over her knees and smiled to herself in satisfaction.  The outfit was so pretty and put-together that she could almost ignore the fact that Arya, sitting beside her on the hard pew bench, had worn an utterly inappropriate black-and-red checkered punk get-up to the cathedral on Easter Sunday in front of the whole family.  Almost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swimmingfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/gifts).



> A/N: Because some sequels need a Part III.
> 
> To swimmingfox, because she was so kind enough to gift me her wonderful beautiful fic Rebound, and because I admire her worldbuilding skills.

Sansa smoothed the skirt of her new floral dress over her knees and smiled to herself in satisfaction. The big magenta tea roses popped out from the silky pink background, making it flirty but appropriate for the occasion. And while the neckline was a little low for Easter services, it was just fine because Sansa’s cute white cardigan covered her shoulders, and she had even found some ultra retro little white gloves for an extra helping of throwback modesty. “June Cleaver meets Bettie Page” was how Arya had described the outfit, which Sansa _thought_ was supposed to be a compliment, but it wasn’t always easy to tell with Arya. In any case, the outfit was so pretty and put-together that Sansa could almost ignore the fact that Arya, sitting beside her on the hard pew bench, had worn an utterly inappropriate black-and-red checkered punk get-up to the cathedral with the whole family. Almost.

“I cannot _believe_ you dragged me to this,” Arya muttered, rubbing her bleary eyes with the heel of her hands. “I already did the stations of the cross on Friday _and_ went to the vigil last night. What else do you people want? Jesus Chri--”

“Keep your voice down,” Sansa hissed through her teeth and glanced at Mother, who was seated at the end of the pew next to Bran in the handicapped access area. “And can you knock it off with taking the Lord’s name in vain until we are out of church, for goodness sake?”

“Whatever. You’re the one who’s been selling pagan festival simulacra all month,” Arya grumbled, referring to the egg coloring kits, plastic grass, and marshmallow Peeps that Sansa peddled at the seasonal decor and costume shop where she worked. Arya was currently enrolled in a freshman year World Religions survey course at JC, and much to the chagrin of her entire family, she seemed to find a way to work into every conversation a dig at the Judeo-Christian discourse. “Speaking of which, when do they start the Easter egg hunt? Rickon promised to give me all the ones he found with caramels inside.”

Sansa rolled her eyes at her sister’s slouchy demeanor, but she was also looking forward to the the conclusion of the services. Having given up candy for Lent, she was more than ready to chomp the ears off one of the chocolate bunnies that the ICF ladies handed out after services. “Just -- look, I know it’s not your favorite thing to do --” at that, Arya snickered and sneered “You’ve got that right,” and Sansa did her very best not to pinch her sister’s arm in retaliation -- “but it means a lot to Mom. Just suck it up for a couple hours.”

Arya sighed with a sound akin to a bus with a faulty air brake, but at least she faced forward and stopped complaining. Sansa could usually get her sister to behave by invoking Mother’s feelings. 

Mother, after all, was the oldest of Old School Catholics -- she drove to the cathedral every Sunday to hear the only mass in town still said in Latin; she had hung a picture of the Pope in the entryway of the house and a rosary on the rearview mirror of her minivan; she had insisted that all her children attend Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament instead of the local public school -- and while Mother had pretty much given up on getting the rest of her family to attend church each week, she always, always insisted that the whole Stark clan come to Easter Mass, even Father, who was vaguely spiritual in a new-age hippie kind of way but was definitely not part of any organized religion. Only Robb had gotten out of the tradition this year because his wife Jeyne, an infectious disease specialist and a lapsed Unitarian Universalist who had always looked askance at the pre-Reformation branches of Christianity, had told Mother in a tight voice that there was no way she was bringing her too-young-to-be-vaccinated infant into a crowded room filled with a bunch of coughing, sneezing germ vectors in the middle of flu season. The vein in Mother’s temple had throbbed when she had heard that one, but her efforts at guilting her oldest son into bringing her first grandchild to Mass had been unsuccessful (“For God’s sake, we _just_ baptised her, what more do you want, Mom?” Robb had yawned as he poured himself a tall glass of wine). In any case, Robb’s self-imposed schism had only made Mother all the more adamant that the rest of them, including Sansa, would be in attendance.

The organist played a chord to signal the beginning of Mass, and the choir struck up a joyful hymn, filling the space with melody. Father Meribald strode down the aisle in his humble brown Franciscan robes, which had always struck Sansa as being at odds with the grandeur of the cathedral, with the high curved stained glass windows, the gilded tryptic and carved marble altar, the rich resinous incense wafting from the gilded thurible that the deacon swung to and fro. 

As mass proceeded, Sansa slipped into a reverie of the rites, but her thoughts wandered to her memories of the previous two weeks. She’d seen Sandor four times since the St. Patrick’s Day party -- five, if she counted waking up that one morning at his place -- and lately, whenever she was not performing an activity requiring deep concentration, her mind would loop back to the memories of kissing and touching Sandor, and all that she had done with him. He’d promised to text her later today, the thought of which somehow made the wait to see him again all the more interminable. She blushed and tried to remember if thinking impure thoughts was still considered a mortal sin that required confession.

Sansa felt a tug at the sleeve of her cardigan. 

“You are supposed to stand up now,” Arya whispered smugly. “What would Sister Mordane say about your lapse?”

Sansa puckered her lips and resisted the urge to blow a big fat raspberry at her sister, and she resolved that henceforth, she would concentrate on the service. She let the prayers pass across her tongue, declared her thanks to God and her Allelujahs, proclaimed the mystery of faith, held hands with her sister and her cousin Jon during the “Our Father,” stood up and sat down and bowed her head to pray. She sang the hymns -- always her favorite part -- and she was well into the calm meditative state that often came over her during liturgy when Arya tugged at her sleeve again. “What?” Sansa whispered, adjusting her sweater.

“The old weird guy behind us is staring at you. No, don’t look!” Arya murmured. Admittedly, Arya subscribed to a different definition of “old” and “weird” than Sansa did, but the statement was nevertheless disconcerting.

“You’re not supposed to be turning around to see what other people are doing,” Sansa admonished even as the hairs on the back of her neck stood straight on end, and then immediately felt bad when her mother glared at her from the other side of the pew. Sansa shrank into her seat.

At that moment, Father Meribald declared, “Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and ever.”

“Amen,” Sansa recited and did her best to keep her eyes trained on the priest. In just a few moments she would be able to see who was spying on her.

“Let us offer each other a sign of peace,” Father Meribald boomed merrily, and numbly Sansa stuck out her hand to Arya in offering of a handshake. Her sister ignored that and instead gave an annoyingly sacrilegious high-five that luckily Mother did not see. Sansa kept trying to turn around to see who had been staring at her, but it seemed that every single person in the pew in front of her had turned around to clasp her hand. Finally, finally, she had the opportunity.

“Peace be with you,” she said straight into a wall of a chest clad in a dark button-down. Slowly she tilted her chin up until her eyes were staring straight into the pair of grey ones that she had lately been thinking about so very much.

“And also with you,” Sandor rasped out to her in that metal-on-mud voice of his, and gently he grasped her slim white-gloved hand in his massive paw.

“We now respond with ‘And with your spirit,’” Mother corrected gently beside Sansa, because of course this was the moment that Mother had chosen to come down the aisle to give Sansa the sign of the peace. 

A shadow of irritation flicked across Sandor’s face before he composed himself. “Right. And with your spirit,” he muttered with the hint of a smirk, and squeezed Sansa’s hand.

_What are you doing here? _she wanted to ask him. But then Mother was pushing her toward the line to take communion, and she was flowing away from him. _Don’t leave,_ she mouthed before she turned around to walk up the center aisle to take the Eucharist. __

By the time Sansa had made her way around the front of the cathedral, down the side aisle, and back to her pew, Sandor was standing in front of Father Meribald with his massive arms crossed over his chest. Sansa watched curiously as the priest gave Sandor a nod of recognition, then placed the host back into the vessel instead of into Sandor’s hands and gave a blessing. So Sandor had never taken communion. _Then why is he here, on Easter Sunday of all days?_ she wondered. 

Sandor returned to his own pew, and it took everything Sansa had to keep from whipping around and talking to him again. She fidgeted with her skirt and resisted reaching up to adjust her ponytail. Her focus on the final rites had completely vanished; all she could think about was what she looked like from behind. 

Finally Mass ended, but when she turned around to talk to Sandor, she saw him sauntering toward the back door. _No!_ she wanted to shout across the crowd, but she settled for shouldering past Arya, who made a half-hearted, grumpy protest. Sansa slipped through the crowd, murmuring polite “Excuse me”s to the numerous pleasant but slow-moving congregants. 

By the time Sansa made it outside into the warm sun and spied Sandor again, he was striding across the churchyard where the egg hunt was being staged. She trotted after him, her kitten heels clicking on the pavers, and wondered as he slipped behind the large feast hall where he could possibly be going. 

When Sansa turned the corner, instead of seeing Sandor as she expected, she nearly ran into the end of a line of several families waiting by the door that led into the kitchen and storage area. Judging by their attire, they did not appear to have attended the recently concluded services. 

Sandor emerged from the kitchen doorway holding a brown paper bag, and he handed it to a woman with two young children and a grizzled old terrier on a leash. He looked down at the dog. “Hold on,” he mumbled to the woman and ducked back inside quickly, then reappeared with a package of kibble. 

__“Thank you,” the woman said quietly, and as she led her children away, one of them shouted, “Happy Easter!”_ _

__Sandor looked away from the family and his eyes met Sansa’s. He clearly realized that she had followed him out here and had seen what he was doing, and the expression on his face was odd, uncomfortable. But just as Sansa was about to leave so as not to interrupt him, he gestured to her. “Come on, no need for you to just stand there.”_ _

__Not knowing what else to do, Sansa clicked over to where he was standing. He quickly put her to work handing out the bags of groceries._ _

__When the last person had been given a package, Sandor closed the kitchen door and brushed his big palms on his dark pants. He gazed at Sansa without saying anything, but with a look in his eye that might have been challenging her to speak first. Maybe there was a little hint of embarrassment there too._ _

__“Thanks for letting me help,” Sansa said awkwardly, clasping her gloved hands in front of her. A child screeched outside, which only magnified the quiet here in the empty kitchen, and emphasized the space between her and Sandor._ _

__Sandor nodded. He must have read on Sansa’s face that she expected him to say something more though, because finally he added with a cough, “That’s a nice dress.”_ _

__“Thanks,” Sansa replied automatically. She looked down at her hands, because if she looked at him all she could think about was the previous time she had seen him, when he had been stretched out across his bedspread with no pants on. “So,” she said to fill the silence as she looked up at him again. “You’re . . . Catholic?” Once the words were out, they sounded incredibly dumb to her ears._ _

__Sandor’s face crumpled into a frightful sneer. “My faith isn't anybody's business,” he spat out with more vehemence than Sansa had ever heard in his tone of voice._ _

__“Sorry, I -- I was just surprised to see you here,” she apologized, taken aback by his harsh tone._ _

__“No -- I’m sorry,” he ground out through his teeth. He took a step toward her and almost reached out for her, but seemed to change his mind and instead put his thumb up to his mouth and bit off a hangnail. “I don't know what the hell I believe. I’ve seen a lot of terrible fucking shit and it doesn’t exactly make it easier to imagine some god out there watching over us all, marking us as sinners and saints.” He ran a hand through his long hair, exposing the scar across the side of his face._ _

__“There are many paths to finding your truth,” Sansa said, one of her father’s “mindfulness” mantras spilling out of her mouth before she could stop it, making her feel even thicker-tongued than before._ _

__Sandor gave her a rueful smirk, and Sansa expected him to roll his eyes at what Arya would have dismissed as a pseudo-profound neo-Deist platitude. Instead, he seemed to decide that she deserved a little bit more of an explanation. “Father Meribald is -- he’s the real thing. And he’s the closest thing to a friend that I’ve got. Doesn't spend a lot of time hassling me about my sins. Just asks me to help him hand stuff out at the food pantry on weekends. Sometimes I go to the service beforehand. I’m not much of one for all the chanting and praying, but I like hearing what old Meribald has to say during the sermon.” Sandor scratched the back of his neck and looked over the top of her head, obviously self-conscious at his admission. Then he gave her a half-smile that bordered on a leer. “Besides, it’s easy. I live right around the corner. As you recently found out.”_ _

__Sansa smiled and blushed and gazed down at the toes of her shoes. She wasn’t sure what to think about Sandor’s clearly conflicted feelings about religion and God. Mother surely wouldn’t like it. But then he had been so sweet to her, so unfussy about helping the less fortunate. Surely those actions counted for something too. She had been lusting after him for two weeks, but at this moment she felt the first stirrings of a deeper, more emotional attraction. When she looked back up, he was standing much closer to her than before._ _

__He placed his hand on her waist lightly. “So, Sansa,” he murmured, low and warm._ _

___When you call my name, it’s like a little prayer,_ Sansa thought, and she knew she would never think of that song the same way again. She placed her hands on Sandor’s strong shoulders and stood on her tiptoes to give him a deep kiss._ _

__Suddenly the door into the kitchen screeched open. “Oh my God, leave room for the Holy Spirit,” Arya’s voice taunted, and Sansa’s eyes flew open. Her sister was standing there with a grin on her face that all but stated her intent to go tell Mother who she found in the kitchen. “The feast is starting. Bran’s saving you a slice of ham. Thought you would want to know,” she said, and darted out of the opening. The door slammed shut._ _

__“Who the hell was that?” Sandor barked._ _

__“My sister,” Sansa admitted, mentally calculating whether she currently had enough dirt on Arya to spill to Mother._ _

__“She rubs me the wrong way,” he complained, then leaned down to kiss Sansa again._ _

__But just as Sandor had gotten his tongue in Sansa’s mouth, the door screeched open again, and this time they broke apart in anticipation of more torment from Arya._ _

__“Oh, Sandor. And Sansa. Happy Easter, my dear.” Father Meribald stood in the doorway this time, holding a small sack in one hand. He raised one bushy eyebrow, not exactly in disapproval so much as surprise._ _

__“Happy Easter, Father Meribald,” Sansa mumbled, her cheeks flushing hot. She heard Sandor grunt behind her._ _

__Father Meribald reached his hand into the sack. “I was looking for you, Sandor. The Easter egg hunt is about to start.” He pulled out a big pair of floppy pink bunny ears. “You said you would help.”_ _

__“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Sandor growled, and Sansa gasped. She would sooner faint than curse in front of the clergy._ _

__But Father Meribald only chuckled happily. “Oh, Sandor, I hope you will forgive an old man for making a joke at your expense.” He placed the ears back in the sack. “I just wanted to thank you for your help at the pantry today, and to invite you to the feast. And of course you as well, Sansa. I hope you’ll both join us shortly.” He turned away with his eyes twinkling, but he propped the door open with a pointed look at Sandor._ _

__“Well, no more messing around in the kitchen,” Sandor groused. But when Father Meribald was sufficiently far away, he turned back to Sansa and grabbed her once more and covered her mouth with his._ _

__Sansa smiled against his teeth. “So, do you wanna go meet my whole family?”_ _

__“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Sandor grumbled. He tightened his arms around her waist and pressed his body harder up against hers. “But I’ll do it, if you can come over to my place straight after.”_ _

__“It’s a deal.” She stretched up to kiss him once more._ _

__*_*_*_*_*_*_ _

__[Happy Easter!]_ _

**Author's Note:**

> ICF ladies = Italian Catholic Federation
> 
> There are a bunch of specific liturgical rituals that I refer to here. If you are curious about what any of them are, I am happy to explain in the comments.
> 
> You probably know this, but one of Sansa’s thoughts is a line from Madonna’s “Like A Prayer”.  
> I REALLY TRIED to work in a reference to Billy Joel’s line “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints,” but I just couldn’t quite get there. 
> 
> This is meant as a loving and slightly silly exploration of a subject about which I have some conflicted feelings, which I guess I sort of hinted at with Sandor’s dark moment in the fic. But hopefully it read as mostly fun and silly yet still respectful of a religion. That was my aim, at least! Thank you for reading! Your comments help me become a better writer, and I appreciate them!


End file.
